To ask you for your best scary book

[Floursacktabletop]

I want to read something scary for October. I don't already own anything . Here's my wants
Must be horror genre, not crime thriller or mystery like The Girl on the Train type.
I've read most of the older Stephen King novels, Needful Things/The Green Mile probably faves
Not gory or body horror.
Any great recommendations? Would be much appreciated.

Susan Hill’s ghost stories are great - both The Man in the Picture and The Small Hand stayed with me for ages.

Hidden Pictures

This really gave me the heeby jeebies.

Lockwood and Co. Funny and scary

Dracula by Bram Stoker is terrifying, I couldn't read it after dark.

Another vote for Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. It’s stayed with me 🤣

The Ruins by Scott Smith
Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James

I was going to post about Thin Air, I thought it was scarier than Dark Matter.
The air of menace it conveys is sublime, I thought of one particular part, and even thinking about it made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Also The Woman in Black.

Love Michelle Paver. She has written about 4 scary books for grown ups. One about mountains, one about the Arctic, one about the Fens (which I love!) I just bought a new one about the Rainforest! Am expecting to be terrified!

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

@Floursacktabletop There’s a fairly new psychological horror book called ‘We Used to Live Here’. It’s got pretty rave reviews and already been picked up by Netflix to make into a movie. I’ve just reserved it at my local library and l pasted some bumpf below for you to read 🙂.

”House of Leaves meets Parasite in this gripping and eerily haunting debut psychological horror, soon to be a Netflix film. Perfect for fans of Stephen King and Leave the World Behind. ⭐ Winner of Reddit NoSleep Scariest Story of the Year Award ⭐ ⭐ A Goodreads 'Best Horror Novel of the Last 5 Years'⭐ ⭐ A Goodreads 'Favourite Horror Novel of 2024' Finalist ⭐ ⭐ One of Goodreads''Top Six Most-Read Debuts of 2024”

Here for the recommendations, thanks.
I like horror, but don't often find books scary. In fact, Agatha Christie's And then there were none is the last book I found scary

Danny Robin's Uncanny book is good for a bit of real life spook.
Loving this thread

If you like Stephen King, his son Joe Hill is very much following in his footsteps.

YY to Laura Purcell's the Silent Companions.

Also, Hear Him Calling by Carly Reagon.

‘I’m the king of the castle’ by Susan Hill is DARK. Do much so that I couldn’t reread it now, decades after the first time.

Another vote here for Pet Sematary by the King and I’d add The Shining too.

Also:

Edgar Allan Poe, anything
Shirley Jackson: ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ and ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’
Jane Austen, ‘Northanger Abbey’
Anne Radcliffe, ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’
P D James, ‘The Black Tower’

I was about to mention ‘Harvest Home’ by Tyron, but that’s another one I shall never reread. I’m far from easily shocked or offended but that was something else. Really disturbing and distasteful.

I found The Silent Companions really scary. It’s odd, because if you were to describe the plot to someone it wouldn’t sound scary, but it is. I read it when away on a California road trip (which has some oddly atmospheric stops - you’d be surprised) and when we stopped in Monterey we actually drove past a house with wooden cut out people on the balcony! I was rather spooked by that.

I’m reading this at the moment, but think it may end up on the dnf pile - definitely open to being convinced to carry on with it! Main issue is that I am finding it very masculine (I almost didn’t carry on after the stolen blouse episode - I find this kind of thing very much written for men, women don’t want to read about wanking, or at least I don’t).

Pet cemetery by Stephen King. Had to sleep with the lights on for weeks and had screaming nightmares.

Just chipping in that there’s a prequel to Laura Purcell’s Silent Companioms just out - House of Splinters. I’m about 1/3 of the way in and really enjoying it. I don’t think anyone has recommended her book The Corset which was great too (I preferred it to her others bar the SC).

Rosemary's Baby (cheap on kindle)
Withered Hill (brilliant)
The Ritual (Adam Neville, free on kindle unlimited)

I just ordered the prequel ! May have to re-read SC before I start that.

The Stand by Stephen King. Long but brilliant, disturbed my sleep the entire time I was reading it.

Stolen Tongues by felix Blackwell

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witch books.
Also The Woman in Black, as POs have recommended.